Goal of the Automotive X Prize: To inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change.
Thirty-one teams have signed a letter of intent for the Automotive X Prize (AXP) competition:
• Aptera Motors – California, USA
• Commuter Cars Corp. – Washington, USA
• Cornell University – New York, USA
• DEHyds – Washington, USA
• Delta Motorsport – Northants, UK
• Desert Fuel – Arizona, USA
• Disruptech – California, USA
• Dragonfly Technology LTD – Northhampton, UK
• Fuel Vapor Technologies – British Columbia, Canada
• GreenIt! – Oregon, USA
• Herf Duo – Berlin, Germany
• HyKinesys – California, USA
• Kinetic Vehicles – Oregon, USA
• Kuttner Doran Inventions – Virginia, USA
• Loremo AG – Munich, Germany
• Maine Automotive X – Maine, USA
• MDI, Inc. & Zero Pollution Motors LLC – New York, USA
• Michigan Vision – Michigan, USA
• MotoTron Corporation – Wisconsin, USA
• Phoenix Motorcars – California, USA
• Prometheus Systems, LLC – Arizona, USA
• Porteon Electric Vehicles, Inc. – Oregon, USA
• Psycho-Active – Georgia, USA
• Roane Inventions – Texas, USA
• Society for Sustainable Mobility – California, USA
• Spirit One – Alberta, Canada
• Tesla Motors – California, USA
• Valentin Technologies – Wisconsin, USA
• Velozzi – California, USA
• X Tracer – Winterthur, Switzerland
• ZAP Motors – California, USA
I have high hopes that the prize process will produce both innovation and viable commercial ventures. The AXP should be thought of as a process, not just the first event in 2010. A central requirement of the competition is that each entry must be ready for production levels of at least 10,000 vehicles per year. No doubt all of the entrants are looking for a win to bolster financing for production.
Note the absence of “the usual suspects” in the first 31 entries. Like Tesla Motors, Loremo AG seems to have a war chest — perhaps big enough to take them through to production. Tesla claims “135 mpg equivalent”, while Loremo’s computer simulations indicate over 150mpg. We are supposed to see whether the first working prototype of the Loremo can achieve the simulations.
The Loremo design concept is quite interesting. And AutoBlogGreen has two galleries of pics.
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